Daily News

World – Remove gender barriers, says ManpowerGroup

26 October 2012

ManpowerGroup said that businesses, governments and academic leaders should have more cohesive strategies in place to allow women to build “sustainable careers” after the World Economic Forum (WEF) found this week that the global gender gap has increased by +1% to 60% in 2012.

The staffing group is a strategic partner of the WEF and called on the removal of gender barriers. The report found that Nordic countries such as Iceland, Finland, Norway and Sweden have closed over 80% of their economic gender gaps since 2011. But more than half of the 135 economies surveyed have failed to close this gap by more than 5% since 2005.

Gap ratings are based on four indicators: access to healthcare, access to education, political participation and economic equality. The highest rated country was Iceland while Yemen came bottom. Other than Scandinavia, European countries doing well in the rankings were Switzerland, Netherlands, Belgium and Germany.

“Only extensive public-private collaboration can help remove the barriers to creating a diverse, sustainable, flexible and highly-skilled workforce,” said Jeff Joerres, ManpowerGroup CEO. “The dynamic workforces that countries need to accelerate their economic and social growth tracts across decades must represent all individuals in a country who want to work.”

The firm said that this issue could also impact the skills shortage and therefore public and private stakeholders should do more to anchor women in the workforce.

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